For the last decade, the late-night TV airwaves have been home to a series of infomercials hawking a get rich quick system called “Winning in the Cash Flow Business,” in which some guy named Russell Dalbey explains over and over again how easy it is to make money by finding, brokering, and earning commissions on seller-financed promissory notes. Now, the FTC and the attorney general of Colorado are calling Dalbey’s bluff, suing him and his partners for allegedly defrauding an awful lot of insomniacs.

The infomercial — see clip below — says that you, yes you, could make hundreds or thousands of dollars in a day off brokering promissory notes in just three easy steps – “Find ‘Em,” “List ‘Em,” and “Make Money.” The ads are also bolstered by testimonials of people claiming to have used Dalbey’s system to earn oodles of cash. Dalbey himself swears by his 1-2-3 system.

Alas, the FTC alleges the system does not work as advertised and that customers were misled into spending anywhere from a few bucks to thousands of dollars each. The suit points out that the bulk of Dalbey’s millions have been made from the selling of his program and supplementary offerings, and not from brokering notes.

Additionally, the suit says at least one of the testimonials in the infomercial misrepresents that person’s actual earnings by $50,000. That woman has agreed to a settlement with the FTC and is cooperating with the case against Dalbey, et al.

“‘Winning in the Cash Flow Business’ was a real loser for hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide,” said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “When someone is selling a program designed to help people make money, they have to accurately describe how much consumers can expect to make and be truthful about how quickly they will be able to do so. None of that happened in this case, and people who bought the program paid the price.”